Under a Baobab Tree: The Story of a Missionary Dentist in West Africa

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Dr. Dean had a successful dental practice in a small town in Texas. He and his wife responded to a call to become full-time missionaries after many weekend trips to South Texas to do dental clinics in Mexico. They were unsure if his profession as a dentist could even be used on the foreign mission field, but learned the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention had requests from five countries around the world for a dental missionary. The need in West Africa seemed to be the most pressing. He spent a decade following God's leading. He went expecting to continue practicing dentistry but learned it would be necessary to be open and willing to assume many different jobs. Their country of Upper Volta, which would be renamed Burkina Faso after they arrived, was a former French colony. Learning French would require a year in France. Arriving in Africa more language study would be needed, as well as building his clinic and dealing with roadblocks along the way. The Deans went as dental missionaries. They were unable to just blend in and were always on display. This story deals more with strangers living in a strange land than with being a dental missionary. Portions are intensely poignant about the life of the people in Burkina and others are amusing about learning to adapt to a new and different culture. There are episodes of rejection that made them question their calling followed by many affirmations from the Burkina people.

Author Bio

Dr. Dean was born and raised in Anson, Texas. He attended McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, obtaining a BS in Chemistry and a minor in Biology. He attended the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston and graduated in 1977 with a DDS. He practiced for five year in Springtown, Texas, near Fort Worth, before he and his wife volunteered for full-time missions with the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He and his wife spent a year in language school in Tours, France, before moving to Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). He built a dental clinic in Bobo-Dioulasso, and a mobile clinic, that he used for bush clinics during the dry season. After returning to the United States in 1992 he practiced for 27 years in Floydada, Texas, as a solo dentist. He retired from full-time dentistry in 1992 and moved to his lake house on Lake Brownwood in Central Texas. He found a life of leisure was not for him and returned to dentistry for two months in Eagle Pass, Texas, working in a public health clinic. He and his wife then moved to Utiqiagvik, Alaska, the northernmost city in the United States where he worked at Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital and five remote villages on the North Slope as a general dentist. He retired again as a full-time dentist in 2023 but continues to work part-time for the Indian Health Service on the North Slope as a fill-in dentist.